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If you choose to follow any links to the abstract and/or complete text of the item listed below, you will be leaving the Strategian Web site. If you wish to return to this page from the Web page you are sent to, please use the Back option of your browser. Claudia Dreifus A Wife Learns to See With Alzheimer's Eyes: A Conversation With Joanne Koenig Coste. (... Joanne Koenig Coste concedes that she is a bit of a Pollyanna. "It helps with what I do," said Ms. Coste, a consultant for institutions that treat patients with dementia and the author of "Learning to Speak Alzheimer's." Thirty years ago, when Ms. Coste was pregnant with her fourth child, her husband, Charles Koenig, then 44, began showing the symptoms of Alzheimer's disease. For four years, until he died in 1976, Ms. Coste devoted herself full time to his care. She had no medical experience. But as his illness progressed, Ms. Coste found herself inventing her own methods, a system she now calls habilitation. In that approach, patients and those who care for them abandon any dreams of a cure, instead devoting themselves to making life as comfortable and pleasant as possible. Ms. Coste encourages people who take care of Alzheimer's patients to enter their worlds and, to some degree, to join the patients there. Homes, apartments, furnishings and even menus are juggled and rearranged to meet special needs, said Ms. Coste, who is 64 and has remarried. Habilitation has won praise from health care professionals. The founding director of the National Institute of Aging, Dr. Robert N. Butler, wrote the introduction to Ms. Coste's book, and she estimates that at least 100 nursing homes and assisted-living centers have adopted her methods. From the text of the article) New York Times (March 23, 2004): Section F, Page 6, Column 3. How to find the above journal, magazine, or other publication? See Step 3: Locate of the Information Strategy for details. Questions? Please let me know. |
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